'Great' year for offensive linemen

Indianapolis - Gil Brandt, the Milwaukee native, is a legend in NFL personnel circles. Fairly sure the longtime Dallas Cowboys personnel guru helped found the NFL scouting combine. So he's been through a few of these meat markets -- all of them.

And he's never seen an offensive line crop like the one in Indianapolis this year.

"If you need an offensive linemen and you can't find one in that group, then you never will," Brandt said. "A great group."

Music to the ears of Packers fans.

"I've never seen a situation where we've had 26 guys in a group and all of them worked and did everything," Brandt said.

"The shortest guy was 6-2.5. The shortest. We didn't have anybody under 300 pounds. We had six guys 6-6 or taller. We had nobody do less than 18 on the bench press. We had nobody with less than a 32.5-inch arm measurement. The arm length is just unbelievable. We had two offensive linemen that were over 36 inches in arm length."

"There wasn't a fat guy there. There wasn't a guy that moved bad. It was like everybody was chiseled and a wide receiver. And they're moving with speed. Impressive."

"I've just never seen a group that...I'm not saying they're player but as far as running well and working out, it's phenomenal. We get a bunch of guys in the 5.1s (for the 40s). Trent Williams from Oklahoma ran 4.78 at 315 pounds."

Of course, measurements and drills do not a starting NFL lineman make.

"Just because a guy's big and just because he's fast, doesn't mean he's going to be a player, but it's hard to take a guy that's not big and not fast and make him a player," Brandt said. "It's a lot easier to take a big, athletic guy and make him a player."